Electronic commerce is growing at an astonishing rate and is likely to capture an ever growing segment of retail and business sales from conventional stores.
One particularly attractive feature of Internet commerce is the relatively low entry costs, in terms of physical overhead, associated with starting an E-commerce business. An E-commerce business can be started with little more than a Web server for hosting the business's Web site, and the staff and accessories needed to ship and bill for products ordered over the Internet. Rent and other business overhead can be minimized by locating the E-commerce business at a relatively remote location where building rents are low while high speed Internet access and shipping services are still accessible.
Initially, many small E-commerce businesses are started out of peoples homes or existing business sites with a minimal amount of investment in physical hardware.
From a consumer standpoint, ordering of goods and/or services via the Internet offers many advantages. often the goods are offered at a lower price than that charged by conventional retailers. In addition, the vast number of businesses which can be accessed via the Internet allows customers the ability to order both common and hard to find goods and services from the convenience of their home.
Internet orders are usually made via the exchange of electronic information between a customer's computer and a Web server hosting an E-business Web site to which the order is directed. The order process is normally an automated one which lacks any live human involvement on the part of the E-business retailer.
Many potential E-business customers find the lack of human involvement on the part of the E-business retailer unsatisfactory. In the case of expensive purchases, customers often seek an oral acknowledgement from a human being that the order was received and is being processed properly. This is often exhibited in the form of a telephone call being placed by the customer to the E-business after an order is mare.
The inability to orally present questions to a sales representative during an E-business transaction is another area which many potential E-business customers find unsatisfactory. In many cases, sales are lost because a customer does not want to present their questions in E-mail form.
Another complaint with E-commerce is that many businesses which sell over the Internet have poor customer support. In many cases, people complain about being unable to contact service representative to discuss the status of an order or other order related problems.
Large electronic retailers can make significant investments in telephone equipment such as PBXs which can be used in placing calls to customers and servicing calls received from customers. However, many smaller E-commerce start-up are unwilling or unable to make such investments in telephone equipment.
The cost associated with PBX and other telephone equipment is one reason Internet businesses have poor telephone support. Another reason is the cost associated with having people available to respond to questions which may be raised 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Often the demand to speak with sales representatives and customer service people will vary during different times of the day. Unfortunately, sales representatives who have to commute to work are often unwilling to work only a few hours a day or with large intervals of unpaid breaks, e.g., several hours, between work periods. Thus, in order to have customer service representatives available to satisfy peak demands often means that service representatives will need to be paid for off-peak periods of time during which they may be idle.
In view of the above discussion, it is apparent that there is a need to improve the ability of E-commerce customers to interact, e.g., over the telephone, with service representatives. There is also a need for methods of providing Internet businesses the ability to provide telephone support to Internet customers without having to make substantial investments in telephone equipment such as PBXs. It is also desirable that at Least some methods reduce or eliminate the need for customer service representatives to commute to a centralized location or office to work.
The business's Internet server receives the call request message and identifies an available customer service representative who can service the call request. Once a customer service representative is assigned to handle a call request, relevant information is transmitted to a computer used by the identified customer representative via, e.g., the Internet or a local area network (LAN). In addition, a customer service call is initiated between the customer and the identified customer service representative using, e.g., the customer telephone number information included in the call request message or a customer telephone number retrieved from a database.
The customer service call may be initiated by sending, in the form of a customer service call initiation message, a telephone switch, conference bridge, intelligent peripheral device, AIN circuitry such as an ISCP (integrated service control point) or other telephone equipment with call initiation capability, the telephone number of the customer to be called and the telephone number of the service representative. The customer service call information may be transmitted via the Internet or a LAN to the device which is responsible for establishing the customer service call. In addition to the telephone number information, the customer service call initiating message may include, e.g., a business identifier and/or password. The business identifier is used for billing purposes while the password is used to ensure that the identified business is the party requesting the customer service call. All or portions of the customer service call initiating message may be encrypted.
In order to use customer representatives' time in an efficient manner, the calling equipment may be programmed to call the customer first. Once the customer answers the phone, an automated message is played to the customer requesting that the customer hold while being connected to a customer service representative. An exemplary message played to the customer may be, e.g., “Please hold while we connect you to a ABC company customer representative.”, where ABC is the name of the company identified in the customer service call initiating message or call request message. While the customer is being played the message, the calling equipment calls the customer service representative and bridges the calls between the sales representative and the customer. In such an embodiment, the customer service representative's time is not wasted waiting for the customer to answer the phone or on calls which go unanswered by the customer.
The above discussed technique of establishing a customer service call between a customer viewing a Web site and a customer service representative has several advantages. From a customer's perspective, it allows a customer to talk with a customer representative without having to place a call often while still viewing the Web page which was responsible for prompting the desire to talk to a customer representative in the first place. From an E-business perspective, it allows for such calls to be placed without having to make an investment in telephone calling equipment such as a PBX, call bridging equipment, conference calling equipment or other expensive telephone equipment. This is because, in accordance with the present invention, such equipment may be owned and located at a telephone company site as opposed to the E-business owner's site. The above described method also allows for efficient use of customer representatives' time and allows customer representatives to work from home if desired. Since customer representatives can work from home, they may be more willing to work part time, split shifts, or work at unusual hours such as nights, weekends or late evenings since they can do so from the comfort and convenience of their own homes.
While the methods of the present invention have been discussed above in the case of an embodiment where the call request message is first transmitted to a company's Internet server, the call request message may be transmitted directly from the customer's computer to telephone equipment having call initiation and, optionally, call bridging capabilities, e.g., via the Internet. In such an embodiment, the telephone number of the agent to be contacted, or, e.g., an 800 number corresponding to a customer service center, may be incorporated into the customer's call request message in addition to the customer's telephone number. This telephone number may be obtained from information included in the Web page which included the button which was responsible for initiating the generation of the call request message. Alternatively, the calling equipment may be responsible for identifying the telephone number of an available customer service representative using a business identifier included in the call request message and any one of a number of known automated call distribution techniques.
After identifying the telephone number of the service agent to be used in a customer service call, in response to the call request message, the calling equipment establishes a call between the customer and customer service representative, e.g., in the manner discussed above.
In the above manner, the methods and apparatus of the present invention can be used to facilitate E-business transactions, reduce or eliminate the need for E-businesses to make substantial investments in telephone equipment and, at the same time, provide a customer service representative greater opportunities to work from home.
The methods of the present invention can be used to provide customer support using voice over IP as opposed to voice over the telephone. In such an embodiment, IP calling equipment is substituted for the described telephone calling equipment. In addition, Internet, e.g., IP, addresses are substituted for telephone numbers.
Various additional features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the detailed description which follows.